The History of Annika’s

Many people have asked me over the years how I came up with the name Annika’s. Well let’s take a walk through time, back to 1992 when Star Trek the Next Generation was on television. I had been into the classic Star Trek for years. I had only ever seen them in reruns. I thought what was this? As I took the journey through time with another Enterprise. I became addicted and started collecting everything to do with the show.

Not long after we got a proper computer, with net access and Windows 95. I had taken every computer course they offered in school. I was taught to program at home so this was right up my alley. My father became addicted to chatrooms and I watched and picked on him for it. I had also even entered the BRAND NEW at the time, Quarks Bar. A 3-D chat from Star Trek and Microsoft. It was horrible! Everyone was complaining about how slow it was. On a dial up 19k and a whomping 8mbs of RAM. If it came out now when computers have 512 RAM and DSL it would rock. But sadly as before with Classic Star Trek, it came before its time.

It would be years before I would join the chat room as a "regular." I did however peek in from time to time. Mostly I used AOL AIM to chat to people. Those were the nice days when spam was a thing of the future as were lies, nukers, flooders and simmers. I looked up many people who shared the same interests as me and developed a buddy list full of trekkies. One I remain in contact with to this very day, and is a member of Annika’s.

When my father stopped chatting was when I decided to really pick it up. One day I was speaking to a friend on AIM and she invited me into the Original StarFleet Lounge (also referred to as PDE Paramount Digital Entertainment) in MS Chat. MS Chat was a huge change from the lame lounge webpage interface. I entered and got picked on cause of the nick I used at the time. I remember who picked on me as well, however I won’t mention names here. She had entered the chat room as Annika. Annika Hansen, Seven of 9’s human name. Everyone warmed right up to her talking ect. I admit I was jealous as the time. We talked a bit and left to return chatting on AIM. I asked if she minded if I used the name Annika in chat, she said no. And that was the start of Annika B OnaTop. LOL

I became rather friendly with the "regulars". After which of course many blue screens. I had learned later that someone was "nuking" me. I immediately began researching this "nuking". I read every webpage I could find on it and installed every patch I could. After all, the machine at the time wasn’t mine. I had to take care of it. So I did to the point of paranoia. Firewalls, patches, port changes, nuke naber, ip tracers, virus scanners, the works.

Annika really took form when, an ex-cyber boyfriend of mine brought in a macro. It was beautiful and basic. Three hearts with the word HUG in the middle then three more hearts. I was speechless. Being the artist geek I am, I copied it and adapted it into so many forms it blew everyone away. Soon everyone in the chat room was hugging and welcoming everyone whom entered. It became a warm place for everyone. After all who doesn’t like to be hugged as a welcome to a new place?

I decided at this point to make a webpage, after all MSN was advertising they had free webpages for others. I was just going to use it as a personal thing, as I didn’t want to give out my email address to SO many people. Funny now I lost count of all the people whom have it. I started the webpage with basics in mind. So I named it after my "name" at the time, Annika. No one knew my name wasn’t Annika. Only when I trusted them did I allow a select few to know my name was Amy. After all I didn’t know anyone in chat by their 1^st names. And I learned by my father’s experience that not everyone on line tells the truth.

I became a protector of many in the chat room. I ended up having 4 online daughters, from all over the world, who were very naive of the world around them. And we did have several people in chat that were into under age ladies. One is still hanging around in the chats to this very day under the same name.

Through out the years I updated my webpage with things I learned and or thought others should know. I learned more online than I ever have in school. And much of it still applies to this very day. I found it a great way share my knowledge and talents. It feels nice to talk to the old "regulars" from chat to see how much they have learned. I’m finding many aren’t keeping up with the advancing technology. Sadly to those few, keeping a computer updated and upgraded is keeping up. I have yet to come across a person from the lounge that knows what a robots.txt file is. And that's sad because most own their own domain as well.

In the beginning, members who joined I invited and it grew from there. And now, we have over 200 members who in turn help others as well. My goal has been reached, and continues to be expanded upon. I update it often as I still wish to help others out there. No one should have to go through what I been through, and I hope to help as many as I can avoid the hassle.

So though my webpage started out to be of my own interests it expanded into not only Star Trek, but protection, chat, saving money and world travel. As I have changed over the years, as has my webpage.

 I learned more about the way MSN webpages work.. and trust me they are nothing like real HTML. So that’s even harder to learn. Because my business page is and this isn’t, I sometimes get confused.

Should there ever be a problem, IE MSN closes down Annika’s for any unknown reason, the managers and I have created a backup, and you can always reach us (IE the backup or Annika’s) by going to http://www.amylynn.org/home This is where the redirect of the back up will appear. It is another MSN group's page though.